


Betrayal and a Kid

by thatdragonchic



Category: Eyewitness (US TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bad Parent/Child Relationship, Emotional Manipulation, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi, My first philkas multichapter!, Philkas - Freeform, leave your comments, mentions of abuse, or be banished to your doom, supportive foster family / child relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2016-11-14
Packaged: 2018-08-31 02:03:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8559079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thatdragonchic/pseuds/thatdragonchic
Summary: Philip Shea knew that his mother and father never had a steady relationship, the way that drugs ruled their whole lives, how nothing was ever good for him. At nine years old though, his father left for a 'business' trip (like the other dads did) and he never came back. Until now that is. ---A few chapters surrounding Philip and his father coming back to see him, and how things turn out





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Philip multi-chapter. Mostly multi-chapter because it felt better to cut this into parts rather than make it one REALLY long fic. I've never been that kind of person, normally I'll cut it at seven pages but hte last sentence felt like a good place to stop.   
> Anyways- tell me how you like it and I'll update very soon!

“I’m here to see Philip Shea.”

“And who are you exactly?”

“Who are you?”

“His foster mother, Helen.” 

“Well Helen I’m his birth father, Caleb. And I’m here to visit him.”

“Excuse me? The court never said anything about his father… Where have you been? What role do you play in his life? Are you paying some sort of child support for him-”

“No. I’m not paying anything. That’s not why I’m here.” 

“Then why?”

“I want to see him.”

“How long has it been since you last saw him?”

“Few years but I had good reason-”

The stairs creak behind them and Philip has his earbuds in, eyes on his phone. “Hey Helen I’m going… out.” He stops, looking to the man on the other side. 

“Philip this is your…”

“My dad. Yeah we’ve met.”

“Aren’t you glad to see me?”

“Uhm… I… I mean… I didn’t think I’d ever see you again.”

“Hey.. come on, I said I’d come back.”

“Yeah when I was nine. I’m sixteen now. It’s been seven years respectively.”

“Come on, you’re not holding me to this, are you?”

“I should.”

“Come on bud…” Caleb holds out his hand and Philip looks up at him, his eyes wide, dark and vulnerable but he can’t help it, he strides forward and hugs him, clutching his father. “I would never leave you for good… you’re my everything.”

Yeah his everything… the whole damn world. Which was why, he left for business all those years ago. Why he never called, never wrote, never emailed, never texted, never sent a letter or a postcard, or anything. Left them for good, left his mom a druggie. And suddenly Philip is angry but he doesn’t want to be. For now his father is here and… he’s holding him. And that’s the most he’s gotten from him in seven years. Seven. Seven long years and it was so reassuring but he hated it… he hated that he was here, manipulating him again. He pulls off and looks to his father. 

“Why are you here..?”

“Because they took my kid from me.”

“No they didn’t. How did you even know?”

“I went to the house and it was just your mom… She told me what happened.”

“You wouldn’t have stopped it from happening to her. Frankly, would have happened to you too.”

“Hey-”

“You hated her.”

“I never-”

“You hated her.”

“I did not. I was just… drunk, high and angry.”

“You hated her.”

“I never hit either of you.”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Have I?”

“Why’d you come back?”

“I wanted to see you guys. My life is better now.”

“And ours got worse by the day.”

“Philip…”

“You let us suffer.”

“I did not-”

“No you did. You left and you left mom, and you left me! I’m not your everything. You would have wrote, you would have sent money. What were you doing? Who were you with?”

“That is not information that you need to know-!”

“Yes it is!”

“Philip!”

“You left us for dead.”

“Who do you think paid the bills when you couldn’t?  _ She _ wouldn’t let you talk to me.” 

“And who is ‘she’ supposed to be exactly? You say it like she’s the devil.”

“She got you taken from us.”

“From her. I was all she had-”

“She could have gotten you killed!”

“No she couldn’t.”

“What if those men killed you?”

“What men?”

“You know what men.”

“What men?” Philip repeats louder. “Her boyfriends? The ones who fed us half the time-?”

“Yeah and beat the shit out of both of you and encouraged her to do drugs all the time?”

“Fuck you-”

“Philip!” Helen yells. “You know what, enough from both of you. How about we sit to dinner and have a civil conversation about this-”

“I’m leaving.”

“You’re staying for dinner. Whoever is meeting you can wait.”

Philip nods and looks at his father. Helen invites them back into the house and he reluctantly trudged to the living room, every step feeling heavier than the last, like the weight of the world is dragging him down. His father’s hand is on his shoulder and he turns to look at him. 

“Do you really think I hate you?”

“I never said you hated me… you hated mom. And I love mom. She’s everything to me. She’s  **everything** to me!” Philip whispers harshly. 

“I came back for both of you.”

“Why?”

“Because I love you both.”

Philip gazes up at him, he wants to say he loved him back but he doesn’t, probably because he doesn’t love him back. Not like he should. He loves  _ gabe  _ more than he loves Caleb. Caleb wasn’t his father anymore. They were different now. Everything was different now. He wasn’t the small nine year old boy, crying in mommy’s eyes because daddy was going on a business trip. He was sixteen, and he’s seen too much and felt too much and done too much. He was sixteen but he wasn’t. He knew too much, trusted too little, aspired too far. He wanted everything and nothing. His hopes were too high, yet he was terrified. Stuck in his place yet yearning to be moving forward. Further along.

“Philip… Look at me. I was working hard to give you a better life.”

“Why are you really here?” He repeats softly. 

“Dinner’s ready,” Gabe announces, watching the other man. “Gabe,” he introduces.

“Caleb.” 

Philip gets up to gravitate towards the table, into the sanction of what’s now familiar to him. Bad cooking and Helen and Gabe being affection as ever. He sits in his normal spot, and Gabe sits across from him, where Helen and Gabe are not. They watch the two carefully, and Philip looks around with innocent, wide eyes, full of fear but also curiosity. This was not a situation he’d ever really thought about. His eyes land on his father, and he can’t take them off.

“What?”

“You never answered my question.” 

“Philip, I told you-”

“Forget it.” 

“I want to know about you.”

“Yeah? Like what- can you pass the mac and cheese?” Helen takes his plate and serves it for him. He smiles.

“Like… what do you like to do?”

“I like to take pictures.”

“Of what?”

“Anything.”

“Anything.”

“Yeah.”

“What do you plan on studying?”

“Uhm… well I’m still sort of thinking but I want to major in literature and then go on to get a PHD in literary analysis. Maybe become a school teacher.”

“All that for a school teacher?”

“Why not? I like books.”

“Right. Dating anybody?”

“Not that you’d care to know. What about you?”

“Am I dating anybody?”

“Sure.”

“I was… when I left. She had a kid. He’s uhm… he’s younger than you obviously.”

“What?”

“We’re still together now.”

“Oh good. So just a question?”

“Yeah?”

“Why are you here?” Philips sweet voice turns dark with the question, an eyebrow perched up cockily, and his lips turned into a scowl. Without even look at the plate, he stabs at potato wedge and slides it into his mouth slowly, daring his father to fight him on this.

“I told you before, because I missed you. I love you guys.”

Philip chokes with a laugh, finishing the food in his mouth before swallowing, his smile fades. “You fucking asshole- go back to your other family. Go raise your kid.” 

“You’re my kid too.”

“Haven’t been for seven years. No reason to start now.” 

“Philip Shea.”

“Caleb Rollingson.” 

“I came back for you.”

“No you didn’t.”

“I did.”

“Why did you really come back?”

“Philip your mom is in the hospital and I just wanted to-”

“What?”

“You didn’t know?”

“None of us knew, what’s wrong with Anne?” Helen asks, brows furrowing. Nobody has called about being in the hospital, nobody has mentioned anything being wrong or her turning back to drugs.

Philip sees the genuine exchange of emotions on Helen’s face, she didn’t know. She wasn’t aware. That means they weren’t keeping things from him. 

“What did you do to her?” Philip finally asks, standing up from his chair. “I want to know, what in the name of hell you came back for- and what you did to her.”

“I didn’t do anything Philip-” Caleb begins but Philip is already set on the notion. Caleb  _ did  _ something, he had to have.

“Then what’s wrong with her?”

“Philip she’s dealing with-”

“She hasn’t done drugs in a month! She’s been clean for four weeks! And she was getting better for me! What did you do to her?”

“She OD’d again!”

“She did not! They would have called if she did!”

Caleb walks around the table and Philip steps away from him towards Helen, as if seeking her protection. “Philip listen to me-”

“What did you do to her?” Philip asks.

“Philip maybe he didn’t-” Gabe starts to reason, walking behind him and taking his foster son in his arms. 

“I know he did! She was fine, Gabe. She was fine! There was nothing wrong, they would have called-” He insists, looking between the two, tears pooling in his eyes. “She couldn’t have… I’m supposed to go home. We’re supposed to get a place out here and momma was going to get a job or open up a store and we were going to be so happy- she wouldn’t do that. She woudln’t.”

“Oh jeez, you’re not really that much of a baby to believe in her fairytales are you?” Caleb says. “You know she’s never going to get better, and that nothing is ever going to change-”

“She was getting better!” Philip snaps.

“Things will never change.”

“They are changing. What did you  _ do  _ to her?”

“Don’t you trust me?”

“No!” 

“Stop living in your head philip! That’s your problem-”

“I don’t have a problem! You come back into our lives for five minutes and suddenly you know everything? Don’t you? Well you don’t! You don’t know what I’ve sacrificed for her! You don’t what it was like! Your druggie ass up and left us as if the world would accept you, and you  _ knew  _ that I never had the chance to be like the other kids. That I was shunned when you were around. You don’t know what I did for our lives. For us to live. You don’t know what that pain was like, and I’m only sixteen.”

_ And you think you know everything because your mom’s a druggie?  _ He could still hear Lukas telling him that and okay, so Philip doesn’t know everything, but he knows a lot more than most kids his age do. And he knows a lot more than he should. He feels so broken, tears are falling and he can’t stop them.

“You don’t know me and you don’t know mom. You never did,” Philip spits like venom, he’s watching him through his bleary eyes, the tears are still falling and he feels so absolutely hopeless. 

“You think-”

“I do. I think a lot and I do think that you don’t know us, that you never loved us, that you’re a hopeless, drunkard bastard who hurt my mother. Okay?”

Philip yanks away from Gabe, going to grab his Jacket and his phone. Lukas has only texted him a million times, and he doesn’t bother to read a single one. He’s pulling his jacket over his arms and onto his back like a shield. Like a weapon. He walks out and slams the door, brave face on. Philip Shea was as unbreakable as bulletproof glass, he doesn’t shatter easy. He takes the bullet and bounces it back. He let’s the bullet pierce through his skin, he bleeds, he coughs up blood, he crawls on his knees, down to his elbows, but he didn’t cry, he didn’t break, he didn’t let the glassware thin. Yet…  _ yet  _ here he was, and here was the glass, wearing thin. His carefully constructed walls of steel, bullet proof glass, and shock proof wood was bearing down against his heart and suffocating it. 

His heart was beating wildly, trying to force the weight off of it but he bore it down more. Pressed to the pulse and willed the rest to just relieve itself. He walks faster. There’s nothing going through his head that could convince him that this was something that should hurt him. He was going to be okay. His phone is ringing and he doesn’t care. He wonders if Helen or Gabe are following him or if they’re the ones calling him. He wonders if his father will hurt them- he swears to god he’d lose it if he hurts them. But Helen is too strong, he could never hurt them.

He can see Lukas’ house in the distance, by now he should be back there. There was no way he was still waiting. And he swears, for a moment, he sees the bright blonde mess of hair that was his boys. He walks faster. That’s where he needs to be, in Lukas’ arms, rebuilding the walls that were quickly tumbling down and suffocating him. He’s sucked the tears back in, his nose is running and his cheeks are red. And the cold frost of the december air is tauntingly biting at him, reminding him of all the winters he spent freezing by a small soba heater in his house while his mom was out elsewhere. All the winter days that he thought he might not wake up because he was so cold. The gloves and the jackets and the scarves, tattered and worn.

His grandfathers leather Jacket was given to him six months ago, during the funeral. Aunt Linda, who thoroughly frowned upon her sister, had handed it to him, with all the distaste and dissatisfaction in the world- wondering how he had given it to Philip and not one of her nasally, stuck up sons. But they never went to see Grandpa at the nursing home, and they were never there at the hospital when he was sick. It was always philip. Philip didn’t keep the money he got from him though. He split some of it to mom’s bank account and put the rest to charity. He remembered that. And in return, he got a warm Jacket that served perfect for the winter, keep the biting cold off most of his neck.

And finally he reaches Lukas who’s just stepping on his porch, he wants to call for him but Lukas hears him coming and turns around.

“Where have you been? I’ve been trying to reach you and-” His voice dies in his throat as Philip throws his arms around Lukas and pulls him as close as humanly possible, breathing in his scent, taking in his comfort and it’s all rushing back to him. His father is not a mile away. He’s waiting in his house. He’s not safe. He’s never safe. There was a problem at every corner. His mother was in a hospital somewhere. Things were never getting better. It was winter and he was cold, but he had his grandfather’s Jacket but not his grandfather to turn to. And all that was left was Lukas. Lukas who was a little messed up and occasionally violent, but who loved him with all hsi heart, who was good to people and was nice and had a shining, everlasting smile. Lukas Waldenbeck, who watched three men get killed and saved him from being the fourth. 

And that’s all it takes. The walls shatter as if they were fragile and Philip let’s out a heart wrenching, broken sob. And it doesn’t stop. It doesn’t stop for an hour. It doesn’t stop for thirty minutes after that. Lukas is clutching him so tightly, wondering what the hell was going through his boys head, what could possibly have broken him down so far to the point of sobbing like this. He had never even seen Philip flinch in the face of danger. He had barely shed a tear after the murders. Not that Lukas saw anyways, and here was Philip, under the face of no danger or any seeming harm, crying in his arms.

He thinks of the worst. But he can’t possibly ask him, it seemed so intimate and personal to hold him like this, to let him cry with no faults or explanations- he’s lashed out on Philip one too many times and Philip never held him to an explanation. He let him lash out, and now Lukas was returning the favor. He was letting Philip break down. (And to hell, it might be healthier he does, nobody holds back emotions the way that Philip does. He’s always so… chill.)

In the back of his head, Lukas can hear Philip’s sweet voice the night of the murders.  _ Hey it’s okay… It’s okay.  _ Lukas doesn’t know how his voice can be so soft and sweet sometimes, he doesn’t know how to mimic the sound of gentle reassurance. And he kisses his shoulder which gains a startled sort of hiccup and Lukas kisses again.

“Philip it’s okay… your okay,” he whispers, and his voice sounds so rough dammit. Why can’t he be soft like Philip knew how to be, and why can’t his voice reach that slight octave higher? Why couldn’t he be reassuring? Philip squeezes his shoulder tighter and sobs. It doesn’t seem to stop for hours. Lukas can’t help but let his heart break- something hurt Philip beyond compare and now he’s breaking. But what could have messed him up so badly? 

Lukas is finally able to manage to get him inside. Philip emptily passes Bo and goes straight to the bathroom, going to wash his face and calm down. Bo raises an eyebrow and Lukas shrugs helplessly. “I asked him where he was and then he started crying… Dad he’s never cried like that.”

“Just give him time.”

Lukas winces when a sharp sob sounds from the bathroom, he almost wishes he could make it stop. But he can’t. He just can’t. He doesn’t know how. 


End file.
